Originally from Guangzhou in China, Chen Yanning studied at the Guangdong Academy of Fine Art. He became a U.S. citizen and now lives and works in New Jersey.

Yanning takes as his primary subject portraits of young women, some formally posed and surrounded by still life objects, other more casually depicted in various activities.

Though the faces in his painting have the look of distinct individuals, I don’t know if they are portraits in the sense of being commissioned, or models posed to create interesting genre subjects. I suspect it’s mostly the latter, although he does take on formal portrait commissions, including members of the English royal family.

His draftsmanship is precise, and at first glance, one might be tempted to think of his rendering style as photorealism; but in those few images of his work online that are relatively large, I see indications that his work is more painterly than first impressions would suggest.

I find his compositions bold, many of them utilizing chiarlscuro, others with softer value contrasts.

As far as I can determine, Chen Yanning does not have a dedicated website, nor can I find a gallery that claims to be his primary representative. The best single selection of images of his work I can find is this Russian art blog. I’ve listed a few other sources below.

Gilbert Gorski is a Pennsylvania based artist who is also a practicing architect. Gorski’s paintings diverge from his architectural background and focus on natural subjects.

His approach is a fascinating variation on techniques employed by the impressionist and Post-Impressionist Pointillist painters, using thousands of tiny daubs of paint that blend visually to create images that appear naturalistic from a normal viewing distance.

Within this technique Gorski employs appealing variations in color, while keeping his value masses intact; the effect is a wonderful combination of broken color and visual texture.

On his website, you can find examples of his landscape paintings, as well as sections devoted to book illustration and watercolors that show his architectural background. There is also figurative work and a section for drawings and prints that focus on cityscapes, both real and invented, and explorations of imagined geometric structures.

Gorski is also the author of a book titled Hybrid Drawing Techniques: Design Process and Presentation (Bookshop.org link).

Gilbert Gorski’s paintings are currently on view in a solo exhibition at Principle Gallery, Alexandria titled “The Memory of Trees”.

This is a follow up to my previous article on Artists’ views of Venice, just to add more artists without an ungainly long string of images. It could have been five times as long.

[Images above (links to my articles): JMW Turner (with detail), John Singer Sargent, Anna Richards Brewster, James Whistler, William Merritt Chase, Thomas Moran (with detail)]

Venice is a city from another time, and perhaps even from another world. Seeming to exist in sheer defiance of the intrusion of rising sea levels, sinking pilings, floods of tourists and the looming mountains of monstrous cruise ships, Venice is a shimmering mirage of transcendent beauty, an example of what’s possible when a city is built with as much of an eye to beauty as to commerce.

Unsurprisingly, artists have for centuries been drawn to this island realm of visual delights, entranced by the vision of its builders, and steeping themselves in the triumphs of the great Venetian painters of the Renaissance.

In the 19th century, in particular — a time when European and American artists traveled more broadly than ever before — Venice became a not to be missed destination for artists, who strove to capture its magic in paint, ink, pastel and other mediums.

In my own brief experience in Venice — my wife and I spent a scant three days there before going on to Florence — it’s easy to see why artists were not only drawn there, but often stayed for a considerable time, or returned again and again to bask in the inspiration and challenge of the city’s rare beauty.

In an attempt to put together a few of the many examples of artists’ interpretations of Venice, I found myself overwhelmed by too many beautiful works. I’ve selected a few that I hope represent some of the variety of approaches and crammed them into a couple of posts.

[Images above (links to my articles): Canaletto (with detail), Eugenio Lucas Velázquez, Martin Rico (with detail), Claude Monet, Richard Parkes Bonington (with detail)]